Thursday, September 25, 2008

If I Only Had a....Pen

So its been awhile, 3 months, but who is counting right? Well that just shows you how uneventful my life has been. But on to my story.

Its September, and that means Hockey is back. My family loves hockey, and we are Shark Pass Holders. Which means we love our team and buy 10 games before the season opens, but can't afford to buy season tickets.

Season ticket holders get a lot of perks that us Shark Pak holders don't. For instance, the are invited to the Teal and White game. What is that you ask? It is a night where the players on the Sharks sign autographs for an hour, and then play a scrimmage game. Which means, the team breaks in half and plays each other.

There is free food, free drinks, free face painting, pictures etc.

I was fortunate enough to get invited by my daughters old 3rd grade teacher. He is also a huge Sharks fan and we talk often about the team. Well at first he only had two tickets. Which left me in a tight spot. See my husband and I usually go to the games. I do take Julia, but it has to be on a weekend or a night when she isn't getting up at 6:30 the next morning. But her favorite players were going to be there signing autographs, so I wanted to take her. Well about 2 hours before we were supposed to go, Dustin (3rd grade teacher) informs me he has 3 extre tickets, and would love if I used the thrid ticket for Julia. Awesome!

So we all head to the arena, Julia is beyond excited. We meet up with Dustin, Stacy, and her son Hunter. Since the lines are so very long, we must pick who we want to see. Julia has two favorites, Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo. She picked Joe Thornton. Mostly because she already has a signed stick from Cheechoo. So we get inline. And we wait, and wait, and wait. For about an hour.

Well down the long line of people, I notice an usher walking. He is informing everyone, that since the players need to get ready for the game, there will be no more autographs. Huge disappointment. So I start walking to the front of the line, since everyone is leaving, hoping I might get to sneak up with Julia. But nope, there weren't letting anyone through.

So we decide to just hang out around the area he was signing, waiting for the game. And what do you know. I turn around and there is Joe walking down the stairs. Well I'm not the only one who noticed this, and people start running towards him, ushers are pushing people back, women are screaming, it was a mad house.

Well Stacy and I scramble to get Hunter and Julia and we shove them into this mess of people and yell to Joe, "Joe will you sign their jerseys?!" Well he stopped and said "Sure, do you have a pen?" And this folks, is where I win the Mother of the Year award. A pen? Stacy? Nope, and the ushers whisk him away.

It was awful. Thats the only way to describe it. Stacy and I both felt horrible. Oh and to rub it in, Brian says, "I told you to bring a pen!" Which in his defense, he did. He asked me before we left, but I was so sure they would have pens at the table where they were signing autographs!!!! And they did. At the table.

Bring on the awards people, it doesn't get any better than this!